


Afterburn

by ijemanja



Category: Pitch Black (2000), The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijemanja/pseuds/ijemanja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're both bleeding but alive when he hauls her back to the light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterburn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> An extra treat for thedevilchicken. Hope you enjoy!

Riddick has never doubted his own strength. He knows the limits of his being too well for that.

He hears the body of Carolyn Fry hit the earth outside the circle of light, and when he hears her take a rasping breath and knows she lives, it's not the stirring of relief he feels that serves to weaken him. It's the fear.

When he follows the sound and smell of dying prey to find her, he fears that he will not succeed. That he might try and fail to save her. That the possibility of her survival is outside of his control but not outside of his own desires.

Fear makes prey of anyone.

He finds her in the dark. She looks up at him, dying. She wasn't meant to die for him, and then she doesn't. They're both bleeding but alive when he hauls her back to the light, and possibility becomes something else at that point; becomes endless.

He carries her to the waiting craft and she bleeds herself a little lighter in his arms with every step he takes.

"She needs help!" the Imam says upon seeing them.

"No time," Carolyn gasps. "We have to go. Riddick."

He straps her tight into the pilot's seat. She works the controls with blood-slick, shaking hands, and he appreciates the symmetry. Carolyn Fry will take them out of this world the way she brought them into it: with the pressing fear of her own mortality in her heart and all of their lives in her hands.

They shoot up into the sky, leaving the world to burn with their passing.

"We made it," says Jack with nothing but surprise at finding herself still breathing.

"Some of us," Riddick says.

The Imam says another one of his prayers and Carolyn glares back at them all. 

"Fuck you, Riddick," she says with blood-flecked lips. "I'm still dying, you know."

"Take all the time you need with that, Captain. The sense of urgency has passed."

Her eyes shine like the star-filled void of space beyond and she laughs. And she doesn't know it yet, but she will survive. 

And it's funny, he thinks, that Carolyn Fry lives when Riddick was left to die somewhere back on that planet. He's not sure who he is now, will need to learn, but he knows right now that he is glad.

"Now," Carolyn says, unbuckling herself with faltering hands, "is one of you going to fucking help me or not?"


End file.
